Bloomberg: Lay off banks

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg slammed the Occupy Wall Street protesters on Friday, saying their attacks on banks could harm one of the city’s major employers.

“Everyone’s got a thing they want to protest, some of which is not realistic,” Bloomberg said during his weekly radio show on Friday, according to The Village Voice. “And if you focus for example on driving the banks out of New York City, you know those are our jobs … You can’t have it both ways: If you want jobs you have to assist companies and give them confidence to go and hire people.”

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The protesters, the mayor said, are not directing their attacks at the right place and could put workers out of jobs.

“The protests that are trying to destroy the jobs of working people in this city aren’t productive,” Bloomberg said.

“What they’re trying to do is take away the jobs of people working in the city, take away the tax base that we have,” Bloomberg added. “We’re not going to have money to pay our municipal employees or anything else.”

Bloomberg also attacked the labor unions who joined the fray this week, saying that “their salaries come from — are paid by — some of the people they’re trying to vilify.”

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, told POLITICO that the mayor is simply “playing with rhetoric” and denying the major issue of income disparity in the city that protesters are highlighting.

“We’re just supposed to sit there and be silent while people get hurt?” Mulgrew said. “Is that what the mayor’s rationale is?”

Mulgrew called the mayor’s view “very disappointing.”

“I say shame on him,” Mulgrew said.

The city, Bloomberg said, is “trying to let this — not ‘play out,’ that isn’t quite the right word, but let them express themselves.” But he warned the protesters that “if anybody in the city breaks the law we will arrest them and turn them over to the district attorneys.”

Occupy Wall Street held its largest demonstration in New York City this week and thousands of protesters continue to rally in the city’s financial district. The movement has also spread to cities around the country.